The Secretive US Startup Taking on ASML and TSMC

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00:00This is what you need to know about Substrate, the secretive American startup that wants to

00:04reinvent chip making and bring it back to the US. Substrate says it's built a chip making tool,

00:10a lithography machine that can displace ASML's EUV lithography machine. Substrate's tool uses

00:17a particle accelerator as its light source. It's designed from the ground up, about a tenth of the

00:23size of ASML's EUV machines that can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And Substrate says it's

00:29X-ray lithography machine is already printing wafer patterns that are as sharp, if not sharper,

00:36than what ASML's machines can do. Substrate doesn't want to sell these machines. It wants to run them.

00:41It's planning an American foundry going head to head with TSMC in the business of chip contract

00:47manufacturing. The goal is to build advanced chips in America at the lowest possible cost. Substrate's

00:52raised $100 million from investors like Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and General Catalyst. Out of

00:58the gate, that was at a valuation of more than $1 billion. But Substrate knows that if it's going to

01:03achieve its goal and build its fabs, it's going to need to raise tens of billions of dollars more.

01:08Founder James Proud has met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on a number of occasions

01:12and other federal agencies to position Substrate's technology as a national security priority.

01:19This is a long shot, but if the machine works, it will present competition to two of the most

01:24entrenched market positions and monopolies in global technology.